War Bird

And here comes my friend, limping on

his heavy boot, the heel come off. A cobbler's shop

appears, and I buy the black nails, the dwarf's hammer, glue and strapping.

I work hard on it, bending there

until he speaks and walks on.

But as he is dead, his voice and step

make no sound.

In his third book of poems, David Gewanter takes on wartime America, showing our personal costs and inextricable complicities. The constructs of our social lives, the conventions of our political values,...